ego creans ergo sum

@lew-d​ || ramonda & darcy

“Ba ka yi magana Wakandan, babu?” Ramonda inquired, and she needed only to glimpse for the briefest of moments the lack of understanding on Darcy’s face before she spoke again, “that is alright,” she offered a reassuring comfort accompanied by a slight smile, “I, too, was once a foreigner, and I understood very little – but with time and patience, you will come to know how it is done.”

“I do not know how much my son has told you about me, but if it is as much – or as little, rather, as he has told me about you, then we are sure to have an exciting conversation ahead of us,” she spoke decidedly, offering out her right arm in an invitation for Darcy to take, “walk with me – we have much to discuss, I am sure.” 

Darcy bites her lip, ready to admit sheepishly that she has no idea what the woman -- her fiance’s mother! -- has said to her, but Ramonda reassures her quickly. She takes a breath and gives the older woman a grateful smile that morphs into an expression of shock when she offers up her right arm. She’s cautiously excited; she has a bad history with mothers, but so far, T’Challa’s seems to be okay with her.

Then she realizes it’s because the woman knows so little about her, and Darcy once again feels her anxiety rising. She tentatively takes Ramonda’s arm and begins to walk with her, nervously tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

“He hasn’t told me much about you,” she says regretfully, “but whenever he talks about you there’s always such respect in his voice. I can tell he loves you very much.” She leaves out how incredibly intimidating that knowledge is to her.

@lew-d || prelude solo

The final hours of their flight had been spent with him detailing the intricacies of Wakandan greeting etiquette in an attempt to prepare her for the cultural differences she would immediately come to encounter – “with age comes knowledge and wisdom beyond that of Kings, and so you should begin always by greeting with a bow each individual who surpasses me in age, regardless of their rank or title,” he worked to explain, “when bowing, maintain direct eye contact – to look away is to imply that you are attempting to hide something.”

“After you have bowed, you should extend your right hand in a handshake. It will be you, always, who will initiate this greeting unless you are meeting with a woman who is either older than you or in possession of a title more significant than yours – in which case, she will be the one to extend her right hand in greeting, and you will accept the handshake. These handshakes will be prolonged but not particularly firm – to squeeze as much as is custom in an American handshake could be interpreted as hostile intent.”

“Once you have come to be familiar with a person, handshakes might be accompanied by three to five alternating cheek kisses, starting always with the right cheek,” he said, “also at this level of familiarity, it is not uncommon that you will be asked to address a person in a less formal manner. Until that time, however, you should address members of the Royal Family with use of their honourific accompanied by their first name unless otherwise explicitly invited to drop the title. All other government officials are addressed as “Martaba” without the use of their names – if you cannot remember our word for an honourific, you may use the English equivalent, “Excellency”…” he began to trail off steadily towards the end of his sentence, looking over to Darcy at his side.

He did not mean to cause Darcy any sort of undue stress, but with the amount of information he was pouring on her, he was certain he was managing to do exactly that which he intended not to – he attempted to reassure her, resting a hand lightly on her knee and offering her a kind smile, “you will do great,” he said, leaning over to give her a brief kiss, “I know you will.”

She might not be using her political science degree, but Darcy had genuinely enjoyed earning it. So she knows even before they board the plane that she’s in for a crash course on Wakandan customs and etiquette. She just isn’t aware of how much she has to learn. She starts out fine, listening and nodding along as he begins to tell her what she’ll need to know to keep from offending anyone. But it’s not long after he begins that she begins to frown and gnaw anxiously on her lower lip. 

“This whole age thing is a little dangerous -- I don’t wanna offend anyone for assuming they’re older than I am and they’re not. Or vice versa. You can’t judge people by looking at them,” she says, raising an eyebrow at him. They’ve yet to have a conversation about age -- another sign that they’ve done their whole relationship completely out of order -- but she knows for a fact that he’s older than she is.

All trace of playfulness fades again when T’Challa continues. The furrow in her brow deepens steadily, and her leg starts to jump, bouncing nervously as she imagines all of the many, many ways she could screw this up. His hand on her knee grabs her attention, and his kiss still her anxiety.

But only for a moment.

“I’m glad you know that ‘cause I’m pretty sure I’m gonna start an international crisis of some sort.” One of her hands rubs over the swell of her belly, and the other tangles with his where it rests on her knee. Both touches anchor her enough that she can concentrate, and she tentatively asks the question that’s been creeping around in her mind since the thought that she might end up in Wakanda first occurred to her.

“So how........ how not me should I be when we get there? I--.... God, I don’t wanna disappoint you or embarrass you, and we both know I just say stuff without even meaning to, and I know you find it refreshing but--

         “I do quite enjoy her as well.”     ( wouldn’t know what to do without her, in actuality )

Pietro grins, Darcy’s good humour feeling rewarding,              “I’ll deny it until the dogs go barking -                   or something of the sort.” 

           “Deny it all you want!” she laughs, poking him playfully in the cheek.

                     “She knows you well enough to know that you definitely said it, I think.

                                              You won’t fool her.”

          “——look, don’t think for one second you can lecture me on the processes behind incoming and outgoing messages for the company. I practically setup the first iterations of the system myself. They’re deleted, sure, and DNS propogation takes a while to kick in, but there’s a clear traceroute path indicating that he sent them.”

                    Stark impatiently paces as the member of staff from HR frantically babbles over the video conferencing system, fighting a losing battle against the proposed dismissal of the intern whom had been assigned to the CEO. The billionaire abruptly stops her in mid-flow, holding up his phone close enough for the Daily Bugle’s tweets to linger near the terminal’s front-facing camera.

          “I don’t care who his father is - he’s out on his ass by close of play today. I want us to pursue this confidentiality breech with our legal team ASAP.”

            It doesn’t surprise Darcy that Tony’s livid. Or that he’s on the phone doing whatever needs to be done to get rid of the poor soul that leaked SI info to The Bugle. She knows personally how seriously Tony takes security breaches, so she doesn’t envy the guy at all.

                   In fact, she’s actually grateful to him.

                   It’s nice to know what the company she’s working for is up to.

Thor? He cornered me in my shop and tried to make me feel guilty. I know he’s just trying to protect his brother or whatever, but it was out of line.

[she rests her head on her elbows]

I meant Loki, but... yeah, that sounds like Thor.

“Oh… thanks, I guess,” she smiled.  “I can’t quite tell if Thor likes this look on me or not.  I think it still makes him bitter…”

Jane puts her hands on her hips, pursing her lips playfully and looking down at Darcy.  Torunn clapped and squealed, “Toh!  Toh!”  She tottered over on the cushions and leaned her head against Darcy’s stomach.

“Yes, sweetie.  Mom is a Thor now,” she said cheekily.  Looking at Darcy, Jane shrugged.  “I know.  I have to put on a certain air of bravado because no one takes me seriously anyway.  I have to at least try to command some authority.”

“I’d offer to love you down if Thor isn’t willing, but.” She looks down at her swollen belly and back up with a smirk, a teasing laugh obvious in her voice. “Kinda spoken for. Sorry.”

Torunn clambers over the couch cushions to get to Darcy, and she feels her heart seize in her chest as she watches to make sure the baby doesn’t fall. It occurs to her then that she’d better get used to the worrying and the sudden scares -- that’s what her life is going to be soon. All anxiety flies out the window and is replaced with excitement and joy when the little girl leans her head on Darcy’s stomach. She passes a hand affectionately over Torunn’s hair, smiling and nearly in tears. So precious, she thinks. 

   “Quiet does seem nice, yeah.”

                 Could do with some of that.

             “Oh, I don’t know. Eat healthy? Don’t end up in prison?”

       Darcy laughs.

How romantic it would have been if he had revealed that he had been carrying the ring with him in his pockets since the first moment he had asked her, waiting for the time to come when she would say that she was ready to marry him – but he had taken a more practical approach. She asked him for the ring, and he couldn’t even be bothered to hide the smile that spread across his face.

He leant in to kiss her, a small peck on the lips, “one moment,” he told her then as he turned quickly on his heel to retrieve the ring. Although he had not been carrying it in his pockets, he had been keeping it close – the ring had found a home in his briefcase, and it went with him wherever he went from work to Darcy’s apartment. He had fetched it for her in an instant.

“Is this what you were looking for?” T’Challa asked her, holding the ring up so that she might examine it – it was, of course, as beautiful and flawless as it had been the first time he had presented her with it, “you may certainly have it.”

He kisses her and she wants to lean into it, but he’s gone before she can. Her heart flutters in her chest, but not from the nerves she always thought she’d feel at this moment. Instead, she’s excited. She’s ready. And from the smile she sees on his face before he turns to retrieve her engagement ring, T’Challa is excited too. Darcy bites her lip, trying to keep her own grin under control, but there’s really no use.

It grows even wider when he reappears with the ring in hand, holding it up for her to see.

“That’s exactly what I was looking for, thank you.”

She takes a step closer. Her face is heating up -- she can feel the blush coloring her cheeks. She holds up her hand.

“Are you gonna put it on for me?”

          Oh man, that’s really soon. I woulda thought you’d be just resting with your feet up, and not moving like, at all.

[it’s just their luck that another guest is in the midst of stepping outside of the apartment for some air, kindly holding the door open for the two of them to pass through. Billy looks around for the nearest table, setting down the bags and ensuring they don’t fall over into a messy heap. He sighs to himself, features ]

                    I’m real sorry about that - between school, training, patrols and a part-time job, I’m just about keeping afloat. But recent… problems haven’t helped either.

                               But anyway… I’d never say no to hugs. My only problem is I might only be able to give you a half-hug - I don’t wanna smoosh you. Or maybe a sideways hug would work better…?

             What?! No way! I’ve got class and work, and I’ve got some last minute things to take care of before we leave for Wakanda--

[ Darcy realizes she’s babbling and abruptly stops, blushing. ]

                  You’re not gonna smoosh me, Billy, oh my god. But a sideways hug will do. I guess. For now. As long as you make it a good one.

[ She tucks herself into his side, wrapping her arms around his slender waist and squeezing him. Her head rests somewhere around his shoulder... maybe. Hopefully. He’s like Harry - not terribly tall but taller than she is -- so she still has to look up to meet his eyes. ]

He made a monumentally stupid decision, didn’t tell me and then expected me to just be OK with it. So I shut the door on him.

[She took another large drink]

And then he sent his brother after me.

       Wait, Thor? He sent--.

                   [ she freezes, suddenly very worried ] 

She wasn’t due for another week and a half – this, he knew, and yet his heart still fluttered in his chest with fear and excitement whenever she called out to him. Each time, he would be by her side in an instant, his sharp gaze rolling over her at first glance to ensure that she hadn’t gone into early labour. Their child absolutely had to be born in Wakanda, and the more they packed in preparation for their journey, the more anxious he became at the thought of the child possibly arriving before they did.

“What is wrong?” T’Challa asked her immediately upon entering, taking a short moment to take in the mess that Darcy had make in her packing now that he knew that she wasn’t going into labour, “do you need help packing?”

T’Challa is at her side practically before she can blink, and she winces -- not because she’s in any pain but because she knows he’s taken to thinking she might be going into labor every time she calls him. She apologizes, reaching up to cup his cheek in her hand.

“I’m sorry. Nothing’s wrong. And I don’t need help packing.”

Yet, she thinks. She still has no idea what she’s supposed to be taking to Wakanda. But that’s a different issue. Right now, she wants to talk to him about something specific.

“Actually, despite the fact that just about everything I own is laid out in front of me right now, something’s um... something’s missing.” She turns to face him, holding up her left hand and wiggling her ring finger. “It’s round and shiny and about--” she uses the pointer and thumb of her right hand to estimate the circumference of her ring finger “--oh, this big? And it goes right here.” She wiggles her bare finger in the air between them.

“I was, um... I was wondering if... maybe you know where it is? Cuz.

                                          I really want it now.”

Her room is a wreck, clothes and toiletries and art supplies scattered everywhere, but Darcy isn’t really seeing any of it. As she stands at the foot of her bed, preparing for a trip she never in her life would have or could have imagined she’d make, she realizes there’s something she needs -- something she wants -- that isn’t here.

She turns her head towards the door into the hallway and calls out.

“Um... hey, T’Challa? ...can you come here?”

[his line of vision instinctively drops towards her… curvy frame, a small means of surprise evident over his features due to the considerable amount of time since they’d seen one another. He willingly takes a hold of the bags, feigning a sense of unease from the sheer number and weight of them with a teasing smile]

          Yeah, really long… H-how’ve you been?

[it seems like such a ridiculous question - it’s clear how Darcy is, and he finds his flesh warming a fraction as the boy bites down on his inner cheek]

                    That was so dumb, I’m sorry. I mean— no offence but… you’re huge now.

                  Wow, rude.

[ Her tone is teasing, obvious enough since Darcy can’t keep the smile off her face. He’s not wrong though. She feels about ready to pop and knows she looks it too. ]

                              What do you expect? I’m due in two weeks.